Central Casting Part IV

If you haven't seen this yet, then set aside a snowy afternoon and watch with the love of your life.

Oscar Season is upon us and I couldn't care less.  Since Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington have won 2 Oscars apiece and Gary Oldman and Ralph Fiennes haven't won any, I know artistic excellence isn't what the Oscars are about.

The ravishing Julie Christie with Rod Steiger, a hugely underrated actor who was always proud to be the only American cast in this cinematic masterpiece.

With an Arctic blast gripping much of North America in it's late arriving clutches, perhaps a weekend at home curled up by the fire watching an old classic should be on the agenda. As many of you know, Dr Zhivago is firmly established in GSL's Holy Trinity (along with Casablanca & The English Patient) of best ever movies. I always tell a young couple madly in love to set aside a snowy afternoon and watch Dr Zhivago, without distraction, and then name your first born son after me.

A very young Brigitte Bardot. Claire, would BB have been perfect to play you? Word at The Red Lion is that you've been gong to a voice coach to acquire a sexy breathy whisper in hopes of landing your dreamboat.

If you were the subject of a biopic, who would play the lead?...and please ladies, give the self-deprecation a rest; if you can't bring yourself to say: "Kate Winslet was born to play me..." then just say: "....ALL my friends say...." as GSL has become quite accustomed to this feminine inclination towards veiled self-flattery.

A young GSL years ago was described as a "sawed-off Steve McQueen". This pic from The Great Escape which attentive Den readers know has a connection to our fav watering hole. Click pic in right margin to reference.

Growing up, GSL would in his late teens/early 20s hear "sawed-off Steve McQueen" in a tone not intended to flatter but as a reference towards my strapping 5 foot 6 inch frame. Steve McQueen would have been a little too pretty/good-looking and out of his depth.  In the '80s and '90s, Ed Harris was  near unanimous as the actor who could best capture The Right Stuff  that enchanted every fine filly that caught GSL's fancy. Ed Harris was too old and too wooden to reach GSL's higher registers.

I got the Ed Harris thing a lot in the late '80s/'90s. Good actor, cool guy;  but not quite right.

Every now and then, somebody stumbled upon the actor who would be ideal. Christian Slater has the right physicality, emotional range, intellectual depth, and a speaking voice that fits the bill perfectly I'm told. A person's voice is the one quality that eludes self-assessment. Every time I hear a recording of my voice, it sounds like somebody else but Christian Slater has done some commercial voice-over work and several people have commented we sound nearly identical.  Christian Slater gets his role of a lifetime as the charismatic GSL...the writing had better be first rate.

Christian Slater has the definitive GSL within his reach but first he'd have to spend a lot of time at The Red Lion doing research on how to walk the talk....and lose the hair product.

Emily Blunt as my Estella. She'd have to visit Claire's voice coach to perfectly capture Estella's signature tone...a sing-song lilt of derision that would have driven Gandhi to mass murder.

A GSL biopic has long been a favorite topic of Estella...just so we can discuss who plays her. About 5 years ago Emily Blunt overtook a raven haired Toni Collette.

Toni Collette who Emily Blunt supplanted. She actually does have Estella's physicality but the features a  slight bit too sharp and Emily Blunt's softer, more womanly look better fits the bill.

If the BBC does a 12 part/ 18 hour treatment (as has been rumored), then one fascinating sequence would have the vastly underutilized Rebecca Pidgeon.

The multi-talented, underutilized, and Mrs. David Mamet, Rebecca Pidgeon. At a wedding reception, GSL mistakenly thought her doppelganger, seated to my left, was who the bride eagerly encouraged me to direct my attentions towards. GSL was smitten at first glance, put on the GSL full court press....with predictable lead--pipe cinch results only to discover at night's end she was married to the chap sitting opposite us at the 'fun table'. The young lady seated to my right left early in a huff. The doppelganger and I had a couple of very heated, and thankfully unconsummated, months of interaction and she ultimately emotionally proclaimed in a I can't go on like this tone: "I'm happily married (and pregnant with her first child I later was relieved to discover).... but if I wasn't would love to be married to you...."

Perfect ending with no casualties and the highest compliment GSL has ever been paid.

Ladies, who would be cast in your biopic and please do include significant others past and present.